Monday, 12 September 2011

Melting Records - Phew!!

I've discovered that the thing that really disappoints me most in the world is fakery. I respond to it now not with the unmitigated anger I think I possessed in my youth, but nowadays more with a kind of weary sadness. A deep sense of dismay sweeps over me whenever I hear a band with a singer who really just wants to be another singer. Or branded lemonades like Sprite that don't taste like lemonade at all. Or that time I heard David Cameron speaking to a member of the public about how much he hates self-service supermarket checkouts. I've even realised that the whole reason I'm against royalty isn't really the issue of class as I convinced myself it was when I was that angry young man. It's that the whole business is so utterly artificial it takes a logical effort of incredible proportions to give it even a small amount of credence.

So inevitably I became giddy with pleasure on encountering the bands and artists of the Melting Records stable, arguably the least fake music in the world at the moment. You'll see what I mean if you catch my September Dandelion Radio show and listen with especially undivided attention to the tracks from Nameless and The Fuzz, both bands who form part of the aforementioned label's enthralling body of work and who are doing more than anyone in the crucial battle against fakeness in the world of music. In fact, you won't even need to listen with that much concentration, because chances are you'll find yourself grabbed, assaulted, perhaps even ravished by their unvarnished and highly appealing racket.

While The Fuzz offer an untidy and irreverent take on what I suspect initially starts out as some variant on blues rock, Nameless take any rule book you care to mention and shred it, spit all over it and then bugger it sideways. I remember Nick Kent writing about seeing the pre-Lydon Sex Pistols in rehearsal for the first time and expect it probably sounded like this, except I suspect Nameless are actually far better. But I wonder how many bands start making an unholy row like this, check themselves and say 'we can't put this before the good people of the public' then turn into Kings Of Leon, Foo Fighters or any of a thousand dullards who make up far too much of the rock canon?

Even the way Melting Records got in touch was refreshing, a long, rambling but essentially very genuine attempt to tell me about what they're up to and suggesting that, having caught a recent streaming of my show, it might be the kind of thing I'd like. I become genuinely aghast at DJs from the likes of 6music saying things like 'I never listen to unsolicited demos' and wondering how on earth you then get to even listen to new music, not to mention be surprised by anything ever, and the thought that the kind of approach from Melting Records would be unlikely even to be read by so many 'tastemakers' (anyone who calls themselves that has nothing at all to offer in any capacity, by the way) makes me want to set fire to things.

In short, to say the stuff that Melting Records is putting out has a raw and unrefined quality is an understatement of silly proportions. This is music so untempered by commercial considerations it makes everything that is so tempered appear laughable in comparison. More power to Melting Records' elbow. Find out more about them here and, as Melting Records advise, buy their music, buy their T-Shirts and download them illegally.